Walmart to provide new AI capabilities to suppliers
Participants in the Walmart Scintilla supplier platform will have access to several new artificial intelligence tools in the coming months.
Walmart introduced the Scintilla platform, which provides a unified picture of category performance and consumer trends at scale, under the name Luminate in 2021 and then updated it to Scintilla earlier in 2025.
[READ MORE: Walmart expands, renames Luminate data platform]
Following the recent addition of 15 new metrics to the Scintilla Digital Landscapes offering, which leverages anonymized, aggregated insights from Walmart’s e-commerce site and app to help users better understand the customer journey, the discount giant’s Walmart Data Ventures subsidiary plans to release several new AI features to Scintilla participants:
Conversational tool
The conversational tool, available for Scintilla users in early 2026, will let users inquire about what specific metrics mean, how to use them in their business and how they are calculated. Scintilla tracks metrics, such as sales, category performance, customer penetration and web traffic, from Walmart’s stores and e-commerce platforms.
For decades, Walmart and its suppliers have used operational data to forecast and make decisions about where to put products and inventory levels. However, there are many new data sets relating to customer behavior and perception that suppliers may not yet be familiar with which Scintilla will be able to assist.
"We need to always start with a customer, not start with our sales and operational metrics," said Mark Hardy, senior VP, Walmart Data Ventures. "Being able to educate people at scale on customer metrics, customer behaviors, customer attitudes — that, I think, is where this will become really impactful."
AI-generated research summaries
Expected to be available by the end of 2025, new AI-generated research summaries are intended to help suppliers understand survey insights. Through Scintilla, brands can run surveys with customers who are part of the Walmart Customer Spark Community, an invitation-only program that offers customers gift cards in exchange for participating in surveys and product tests. The company plans to make AI-powered research summaries of surveys available right at the end of the studies and is also working on a collaboration tool for suppliers to collaborate with researchers as they develop surveys for Walmart shoppers.
Finally, the company plans to incorporate AI into Insights Activation, which lets users seamlessly apply Scintilla data to Walmart display ad campaigns using a self-serve, automated solution.
"Data has never been more critical to understanding our customers and anticipating their needs," said Hardy. "But data alone is only as valuable as our ability to interpret and act on it. With Scintilla, we’re delivering more than just data — we’re providing actionable insights that empower our clients to make smarter decisions and unlock new opportunities."
